It may be dumb and ridiculous (that I have to totally agree on) but if someone is willing to park a dump truck load of money in your yard for your property, I don't know many who wouldn't take it. Like guineagurl said if you have a house worth .25 mil and someone offers you a million or more as in some of these cases, you would likely take it. You could have another house built exactly the way you want and still have money left over. And these days if you have children, the cost of college is just to high to pass on it. I for one would give up my house and land for a million if it meant a guarantee my son could go to college with little financial aid to pay back. It would be a totally different story if they just can take your house with little or no compensation though as that can be financial disastrous. Usually when this happens, you would at least get fair market value for your home. I can understand both sides of the argument. Whether we like it or not, growth happens. Farmland is slowly going away in many areas. Unfortunately, life is progress and where would we be without it; not on cavy cages forum for sure because without progress, we wouldn't have puters, internet, etc. Heck even electric and running water is progress over many of our ancestors. And houses have come a long way--look at all the neat gadgets we have these days. My greatgrandparents still had an outhouse that they used well into the 90's. Sure they had a bathroom with running water but it just wasn't what they were used to. It was only there for the children when they came along.